HD For Indies

...so I'm catching up with my good friend and ex-business partner Patrick Curry the other week - we worked together at frogdesign ten years ago, he was the mad web genius that was largely responsible for frog winning an ADDY Award for their website (I think he was about 19 at the time). Patrick is one of those massively technically talented but also highly creative folks most of us envy because they have such Mad Skillz. Except when they are one of your best friends for just that reason. We used to geek out on movie stuff loooooong into the night.

Projected reader intervention: "Whatever whatever Mike, tell me what's up with this $25,000 cash prize....and what do you mean by 'John Woo-esque?'"

OK OK, lets get to the meat of this matter. Patrick has been working at Midway in Chicago as a Senior Game Designer on the first game based on the work of, and with the direct involvement of, action movie legend John Woo. It is called Strangehold. It is...well hey, let me just ask Patrick - this is the email & chat based interview we did, my questions in italics, all bolding mine for emphasis:

Mike: What’s up with Stranglehold?

Patrick Curry: The most important thing to know is that Stranglehold is the first true John Woo game. We’ve teamed up with John Woo to bring his style of over the top action cinema into action game form. At this point I think it’s safe to say that we’ve nailed it. And, of course, we had to get Chow Yun-Fat to star in the game, since it’s based on the same characters from John Woo's "Hard-Boiled."

M: Cool - so who’s making it?

P: Midway is the publisher, and we at the Midway Chicago Studio are developing the game.

When’s the game coming out? What do I need to play it?

Stranglehold is coming out this fall for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. You’ll need a pretty beefy Windows PC to play it… I’m afraid I don’t have the minimum specs to share yet, but I can send them your way once I get them. As for the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, I highly recommend an HD TV and surround sound, but it will still work on a regular old TV.

At one point you mentioned you guys were trying to get a copy of the movie Hard Boiled included with the game - what ever became of that?

The Playstation 3 Collectors Edition comes will a full, remastered, high-def version of Hard-Boiled. The collectors editions will retail for $69.99, so for ten bucks more you get a whole movie! I believe this is the first time anyone has done this -- a game and a film on the same disc, not to mention an HD movie. So that’s pretty awesome.

Hard Boiled in HD? Schweet! OK, lets get to the juicy stuff - so what’s up with this contest? What's the deal?

The contest is to make the most John Woo-esque short film. It can be just about anything you want, so long as it’s not longer than two and a half minutes. The winners will be picked by John Woo himself, and the grand-prize winner gets $25,000 and a bunch of other cool swag.

"John Woo-esque." Love it. OK, so when’s the deadline?

The deadline is in less than a month, June 25th, so you need to get cracking on your short.

(Mike note: the contest had been under way already when Patrick and I had the discussion that lead to the obvious conclusion that I should be covering this. But hey - that's 2 1/2 weeks - Peter Jackson shot, posted, and delivered in 4K the 12 minute short Crossing The Line in that much time! You only need to make a MAXIMUM of 2 1/2 minutes, and deliver 320x240. You gonna let that punk upstage YOU? ; D )

Yikes, that is tight. What’s the submission format?

We’re doing the contest online via MySpace, so you need to submit a 320x240 clip in MPEG4 format (Divx, Xvid) at 30fps. Please compress it to be under 100 MB. I’d hang onto a higher-res version if you have it, but that’s what you have to submit to enter the contest.

OK, easy enough, what are the rules? How's this work?

Well all the usual fine-print legal stuff. The website is the best place for all that: http://www.myspace.com/strangleholdgame

Yeah Yeah whatever great. So what do you get if you WIN?

John Woo himself is going to select the big winner. That person gets $25,000. As the John Woo Selected winner you also get your film shown on Spike TV, a trip for two to Chicago to interview with Spike and a chance to geek it up with us at Midway, a framed Hard Boiled poster signed by John Woo, a copy of Stranglehold, and a free cell-phone for six months.

It’s quite a haul.

On top of that there’s a $1,000 audience prize voted on by people visiting the Stranglehold website. That also comes with the cell phone, a copy of Stranglehold, and a signed poster.

Nice! Who thought this madness up?

Our really-clever marketing folks thought it up. We’re doing a game with John Woo after all, so it was a really natural fit. John’s super psyched about it, since he’s all about supporting up and coming film-makers. And of course we think it’s cool as hell because it’s not every day you can get someone like John Woo to watch your short films. I’m still bummed I can’t enter. :-(

(Mike insert - and this I know to be true - Patrick is a hard core movie geek, even took a bunch of film classes at UT, and lets just say that Patrick is the Right Kind of People to be working on a John Woo game.)

OK, but so who are these preliminary judges?

Ah good question! A panel of folks will do the initial judging and narrow the entries down to the top ten. They will include some of John Woo’s associates, people here at Midway, and a group of people from MySpace. They will narrow down the top ten entries and then John will select from there. The top 10 will also go online July 9th when voting starts for the audience award winner. The entries will be judged on three criteria: 40% quality, 40% homage to John Woo and 20% creativity.

---end interview---

So this does definitely sound promisng - $25K and a bunch of swag for a 2 1/2 minute short - that's a reasonable ROI for the risk involved to produce an entry. I've been hearing about other contests to edit together a music video, or make such and such company a promo, and I felt it was kind of lame and manipulative and not-quite-right - "Hey, do all this work that we'll massively benefit from and we'll give you some skittles & beer!" Uncool. This I can get behind, in part because I know some of the folks involved, but also because the reward is, well, rewarding, and commensurate to the effort.

And in the end, it is just a promotional contest, so it isn't as if they are going to be milking your work to death - plus you get a decent chunk of change if you win. And at the end of the day, if you don't win, you don't get the audience award, you don't even get in the top ten shown on the site....how much fun could you have putting together a Woo inspired short anyway? I saw the Grindhouse trailer competition stuff, they clearly had a blast making it.

This just reeks of an HVX200 job to me - use that overcrank, folks! Since it'll end up on Spike, which AFAIK only offers standard def, you might as well shoot DVCPRO50 for 24p and DVCPRO HD 720p60 for the slomo and use FCP 6's Open Format Timeline to edit those together (or whatever, why not 720p for everything if you have enough P2 cards?). Too bad Red isn't out and full featured - 120fps 720p would be, well....The Killer. Ahem.

And probably hit it up with some Optical Flow action to slow it down even more, using After Effects CS3 or Shake. They want it as a 30fps file, not 24fps, so grit your teeth and export at 30fps even though shooting at 24 will feel right (and help the slowdown factor). Tell yourself that when you win, you'll send them a Digibeta with proper 3:2 pulldown added to your 24p masterpiece.

Real bullet hits (well, not REAL, but practical squibs) are best, but digital squibbing is the new greenscreen I hear. Go back, watch all the old Woo movies, distill the essence, then come up with something new enough to be fresh (a shot for shot remake of the table flipping, pistol in air scene is NOT going to win, I betcha), but a fresh twist that hits all the notes in a pleasing but not pedantic way is what I'D guess would have the best chances for success.

I'm picturing people going further and doing wire work with roto removal to accentuate the dual guns a' blazin' leaping hang time.

The big deal is that it needs to be John Woo-esque - an homage, not a parody. Think about it - John Woo wants to find a new indie filmmaker that makes something he likes and feels represents his style - so do it with a straight face, deep thought, otherwise I'll have to go all flock of white doves on your belittling *ss. Go back and look at the George Lucas Star Wars Fan Film competition - make something that appeals to Woo, not just you.

So think about your plot, make sure it is under 2 1/2 minutes, master it to a decent SD format at least (DVCPRO 50 or ProRes, anyone?), don't forget to sprinkle some luv on it in Color (or After Effects, or combustion, or use Colorista or Magic Bullet Looks; or a Pablo or Quantel if you have access). Make it look as good, as real, as professional, and as John Woo as you can.

Woo Hoo! This'll be fun. I wish I had the time to make one. So go out and start writing and start shooting this weekend.

I'd love to hear everyone's ideas on best tools, best John Woo homage moments to recreate (be it composition, shooting style (gun or camera), plot elements, etc.) - post away using the Comment link below!

I thought this was a cool enough deal I wrangled an ad sale to them, so you'll get a chance to be reminded of what you should be doing in your spare time up at the top of the site for the next few weeks or so until the contest is over.

For indie moviemakers and want-to-be's, isn't this a prime opportunity to get out there and practice your skills? Grab your thoroughly dog-eared copy of the DV Rebel's Guide (you DO have a dog earred copy, RIGHT?) and get busy! REAL indies can produce in a hurry...and the clock is ticking towards this Deadline....and hmmm...wouldn't THAT be a good title?

-mike

UPDATE Friday

Seriously, this is the perfect DV Rebel's Guide project - Stu has chapters specifically on weapons, muzzle flashes, bullet hits, filming with guns in public places (without getting arrested or scaring people), etc.

Also, you can see some HD trailers of the Stranglehold game on this site, just search for Stranglehold in the search field (no direct links possible, durn it).

-m

Labels: contest, DIY, Production